Former Burkina PM charged with murder: prosecutor

Ouagadougou (AFP) - Luc Adolphe Tiao, the last prime minister of former Burkinabe president Blaise Compaore, has been detained and charged with murder over unrest that saw the latter unseated in 2014, the supreme court prosecutor general said Friday.

Compaore lost power after 27 years following a popular uprising in October 2014 against his attempts to change the constitution to remain in office and last year the country's transitional council indicted him and senior members of his government on charges of high treason.

The supreme court prosecutor told AFP Tiao had been detained and charged as part of its mandate to investigate the "popular insurrection" which accompanied the collapse of the Compaore regime.

"Former prime minister Luc Adolphe Tiao has been placed in detention and was taken to a prison facility at Ouagadougou this morning," Armand Ouedraogo told AFP.

"He has been charged with murder, beating and deliberate wounding and complicity" in violence in connection with military attempts to put down the uprising.

Ouagadougou prosecutor Maiza Sereme last week decried the "difficulties" encountered in pursuing the case against Tiao and former regime leaders citing a lack of "cooperation" from state authorities.

Tiao spent a year-and-a-half in exile in Ivory Coast but returned to Burkina Faso last weekend after questioning of several members of his former cabinet who remain in the country

Several sources have told AFP that former journalist Tiao is accused of having signed an order for the army to use force in putting down the popular uprising.